One hundred
and fifty miles east of the city of Los Angeles, the Mojave and
Colorado deserts converge in towering granite rock formations and
strange succulent plants -- Joshua trees raising their arms to
heaven like ancient prophets. From Interstate 10, everything looks
brown and barren, but oases of spring-fed green hide a little ways
in, with just enough water to sustain several hundred species of
birds, lizards, bugs, bobcats, desert tortoise and a ragged herd of
peninsular bighorn sheep.

Austin Puglisi had planned to
build his dream home here. Not your typical desert dream home, the
one with the high fence to protect it from wind and the irrigated
lawn to mimic the lush Midwest. Puglisi wanted to build a tiny
shack and set the rest of his 54-acre parcel aside for wildlife. He
would use only local water and recycle it into the aquifer. He
would get off the grid and live far from its influence. So it came
as a shock, one day last winter, when Puglisi discovered that the
grid was coming to him.

On federal land just a few yards
from the boundary of his property, Puglisi spotted a bright orange
stake marking the spot where a metal disk had been anchored in the
ground with concrete. Engraved on the disk were the words, "Los
Angeles Department of Water and Power."

"From what I
could tell," says the 47-year-old Puglisi, "it looked like some
kind of utility project was either going right through my land or
on the ridge right above it."

Puglisi was flabbergasted.
"We had just secured our building permit," he says. "We had put in
our solar-powered well. Now it looks like we have to put the whole
thing on hold."

His neighbors were finding similar clues
in other places. Unfamiliar trucks were lumbering across the
Kickapoo Trail through the Big Morongo Canyon Preserve; helicopters
were landing on the boundaries of birdwatchers' desert hideaways.
The men who emerged from the trucks and helicopters cheerfully
identified themselves as surveyors for the Los Angeles Department
of Water and Power, and handed out fliers detailing plans for their
brand-new renewable electricity transmission project, the Green
Path North.

In some circles, this was awfully good news.
The LADWP had begun planning the Green Path North three years ago,
in part to access carbon-free, always-on power from geothermal
fields in the Imperial Valley near the Salton Sea, 180 miles away.
The utility appeared to be moving ahead aggressively on
renewable-energy transmission -- and that meant it might soon
deliver on its long-stalled promise to bring green power to its 4
million customers, who currently rely on coal burned out of state
for close to half their electricity.

"The LADWP wants to
be a leader in the field of renewable energy," affirmed the
utility's new general manager and CEO, H. David Nahai, shortly
after he moved from the utility's board of commissioners to its
executive branch in December. And a significant piece of that
effort, he said, will be "building the transmission to bring it
home."

But for Puglisi, who also volunteers with several
desert conservancies, the markers signaled a new threat to a
landscape that local environmentalists had long worked to preserve.
Small nonprofits like The Wildlands Conservancy and the Mojave
Desert Land Trust have spent years cobbling together private and
public funds to buy up hundreds of thousands of acres of the
Mojave, preserving them for marginal species like the fringe-toed
lizard and the endangered peninsular bighorn sheep. If the survey
markers indicated anything, it was that 85 miles of 160-foot-tall
steel towers, occupying a footprint 330 feet wide and buzzing with
500 kilovolt wires, would soon be cutting across the path those
sheep use to get to their only source of summer water.

Worried calls to the utility invariably met with the same response:
No route had been decided upon, and any discussion with the
community over the transmission project would be premature. The
utility confirms only that the Green Path North has to extend south
from the desert town of Hesperia to a substation near Palm Springs,
where it will link up with existing transmission to the Salton Sea
and Arizona's Palo Verde nuclear plant. It could do that via any of
six different routes, including one down the Interstate 10 freeway
corridor, which would expand a right of way owned by another
California utility, Southern California Edison, and require the
condemnation of 3,500 properties.

More from Energy & Industry

Excellent article. The Sunrise Powerlink
really is a sham geared to bring power from polluting power plants
in Mexicali northward. While it's being advertised as
providing power for San Diego, the ultimate goal is to go all the
way to the Los Angeles market. Fortunately, there's a great
alternative plan for San Diego that reduces the metro
area's energy-related carbon footprint by 50%, without
destructive transmission lines. It's called San Diego Smart
Energy 2020 (www.sdsmartenergy.org),
and it could be used as a blueprint for other cities with plenty of
sun.

As for Green Path North, it just seems
obvious it should go right along Interstate 10. Hesperia is far out
of the way of any route from Imperial Valley to Los
Angeles.

dakuaaina

Jun 14, 2008 11:42 PM

Thanks for the lengthy article on the Green
project to bring in geothermal to the LA power grid. You mentioned
the 'other' project briefly, the Powerlink in San
Diego (David Hogan was quoted), but this project has a lot of grass
roots opposition, and the CPUC will issue a final ruling later this
summer/early fall. The cost benefit analysis keeps being revised
lower, and lower, and the power source for these massive
transmission lines Sempra Energy (San Diego Gas &
Electric) wants to string through Anza Borrego Desert State Park
(can you believe that?!) and scenic, tourism-dependent rural San
Diego County "Backcountry" towns is purported to
included dirty coal plants in Mexicali, Baja California. See the
feature article in the San Diego Reader on the Powerlink about two
weeks ago. HCN, it'd be great if you'd task a
reporter to cover the Powerlink issue, especially as the CPUC gets
ready for its ruling.

Thanks,

Concerned San
Diego residents

Anonymous

Jun 18, 2008 11:31 AM

What a great article on the
Green path projects. I would like to express my thanks to April
Sall, Donna Thomas and the C.D.C and everyone who has supported the
fight to save our (everyone not just desert residents) desert.
Because this land is to be for all of us, for the visitors that
haven't seen this desert beauty, for generation to come, it
needs to be here for all to see! For if we really care about this
earth then we will find a way to live on this plant without the
destruction of it. I believe that our decision makers (althought
they would never admit to it) are all about, $$$$, power
and greed. People we are in a self-destruction
mode! If every one of us doesn't make a
change,(REALLL Soon!) a change to love one another and
this plant that we call home. Then we all can just kiss this big
green and blue plant Good-Bye, forever! So here is my 2
cents to all the higher-ups who make the decisions for the people
of earth. Do the right thing for the people, the earth, your
families, forget about if you'll be elected next year or if
this group or that group donated a bunch of $ to your
cause, forget about the $$$$ because what good is that $ going to
do you when there is no more you?...............................and
me!!!!!!!!!!
From: S.O.D sign designer, supporter of the Stop Green Path North
project and proud onwer of a piece of this earth, Laura
Harris/Robert Salyers

powerlink

reid walters

Sep 23, 2008 05:56 AM

I will now resubscribe to the HCN. Anza-borrego and the powerlink, to me, are the most pressing issues in the desert Southwest. This desert must be preserved.
Reid Walters